


I, Pidge

by TheQueenAt17



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Agender Pidge | Katie Holt, Angst, Dealing with the loss of their family, Gen, Just about follows canon, Katie becoming Pidge, Pidge's birthday - Freeform, Voltronpidgebirthday, they/them pidge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-14 13:49:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10537773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueenAt17/pseuds/TheQueenAt17
Summary: Katie Holt stood frozen in front of the television, their legs seized up from prolonged use and their throat clenched in wordless anguish. Tears welled in their eyes, and Katie didn't have the willpower to stop them from running down their face, leaving fresh tracks in the accumulated grime of motor oil that they had carelessly smudged onto their face seemingly a lifetime ago in the garage.Even after watching the report twenty three times, it hadn't gotten any easier.(Written for Pidge's birthday)





	1. Katie

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Pidge's birthday, because everybody wants angst on their birthday, right? 
> 
> I've never written an agender character before, so please do let me know if I've slipped up anywhere.

Katie Holt stood frozen in front of the television, their legs seized up from prolonged use and their throat clenched in wordless anguish. Tears welled in their eyes, and Katie didn't have the willpower to stop them from running down their face, leaving fresh tracks in the accumulated grime of motor oil that they had carelessly smudged onto their face seemingly a lifetime ago in the garage.

Even after watching the report twenty three times, it hadn't gotten any easier.

Their mother had long abandoned the solace of crying, and had sunk to her knees in the porch when she had heard the news the night before. She, like Katie, hadn't moved except to whimper, asking with a broken, childlike voice what she was going to do without them.

Katie had no answer.

They remembered opening the door and extending a leg to keep Gunther in, expecting – _praying_ – that it was only the postman despite the blue and yellow stripes visible through the opaque glass. They remembered how their mouth fell open and eyes grew unfocused as the officer spoke, and the disbelief they felt as they waited for the punchline never came. They remember hearing a shriek behind them, their mother standing in the doorway to the porch with her hands to her face, overhearing the news and sliding down the wall, screaming that it was a lie.

Even now, staring blankly at the screen had corroborated the news, Katie was waiting for the other shoe to drop. They were waiting for the rapping of knuckles on their head as Matt came up behind them, or the affectionate shout of "Katie-bear!" from their father's mouth as he called them to dinner.

A pilot error, they had said. Very sorry, they had said. Shiro must've been distracted, or too tired, or just not quite good enough for the mission – or so they said.

Katie remembered how excited Matt had sounded on the phone when he realised he had been chosen, how thrilled he had been to get the chance to go so far, to one of Pluto's moons, to seek out life. ' _Just collecting ice,'_ he'd said, ' _no danger involved_.' And yet, he hadn't come back.

They could remember Matt's smiling face last time he had come home, dragging none other than Takashi Shirogane along behind him to visit. They remembered how they got along, Shiro treating Katie like a friend despite them being only thirteen, telling them about life at the Garrison and helping them to build their computer in the garage, laughing as Katie rolled their eyes and hold him that _it was a motherboard, not a mothership, and you really should put it down._ Shiro was a great guy, and Katie felt as though they had lost not only one brother, but two.

Shiro and Matt were amazing, the self named 'dream team' – there was nothing that could break that Matt couldn't fix, no asteroid or solar flare that Shiro couldn't avoid... even as they though it, Katie realised. There was no way that there had been a pilot error, no way that Shiro had slipped up when his friends' lives were at sake. They weren't dead, or missing - the Garrison were lying, and Katie had to find the truth. No, it was something more than that, something bigger, and Katie was going to find out what.

Katie forced their eyelids to close over their tear-filled eyes and slowly turned, the insomnia of the previous night taking its toll. Their steps were unsteady and legs wooden, but instead of going upstairs to their awaiting bed Katie headed out of the peeling back door and into the garage.

 

* * *

 

“Girl, if I catch you in here again I'm going to phone the police!” Threatened Randy as he grabbed the collar of Katie's polo and pulled them back from the computer. “I’m sick of asking how you got in,” he ground out, “and I know you'll have done that funny thing with the cameras, so I won’t even check.”

The guard lifted Katie at the waist an threw them over his shoulder, probably having learned from experience that they wouldn’t leave of their own accord. Inwardly, Katie seethed. They had come close this time – closer than before, now that they were practiced in bypassing all of the password barriers – but they were really none the better for it. Hoping they could pass it off as just the result of the large, clumsy steps he was taking kicked, they kicked their feet into Randy's stomach.

Their body still hummed with adrenaline, and their fingers felt smooth and cold from the relentless but calculated jabbing of keys that they had thought, this time, would finally reveal the truth. Matt and their dad were still out there, probably hurt and frightened... even with Shiro there, Katie wondered how Matt was coping. He hated being alone, and even though he had managed to hide it from everyone else Katie knew that he was still scared of the dark. After hearing his sniffling through the bug they had planted a few years ago, they had crept into his bedroom and given him their night light, putting on a brave face and saying that _it was too bright anyway_ , and that they were _going to get a new one_. They knew he still had it. They’d seen him pack it for the Garrison.

As for their Dad... God only knows how he was keeping it together without access to a decent cup of tea and a copy of _The Fortean Times_. Probably not well.

They didn’t know much about Shiro, but he seemed like the most level-headed of the group. Hopefully, he could hold them together – God knows, they needed it. Katie only hoped they could find them in time, before everyone was driven insane...  
They didn’t even let themselves think the worst, that they might be—

No. They were fine. They were fine. They were _FINE_! Katie balled up their fists as tears of frustration began to flow anew. They’d better be fine – the hope was the only thing keeping them sane.

It was their dad always said; if you’re always thinking about what could go wrong, you might miss the chance to do something amazing. This was why, even with the threat of barring or even jail hanging over their head, this would not be the last time they infiltrated Galaxy Garrison. Even if all of the locks were changed, and even if all of the passwords were reset, Katie would be there.

 

* * *

 

Katie couldn't get in again for weeks, but each day was spent revising their notes on entry and exit points and seeing how many cameras they could disable without it being too suspicious. They took note of who opened their windows and when, and learned the guard rotors so that they could time their next 'excursion' for when Randy was curled up in his bed like a new born baby.

They were sure that Randy was a good guy really, seeing as though he had never actually called the police on them or told Commander Iverson how much of a nuisance they were being. Even so, Katie just could not bring themself to like him due to the condescending tone he used when he called them 'girl' and the fact that he never knew when to leave them the hell alone, always interrupting at the most crucial of moments. This time, without him there to mess things up, they should be able to finally get the information they needed.

Katie's back was beginning to twinge from being hunched over for so long underneath the windowsill of the boys' dorm, and they silently cursed the boy inside, who was singing loudly and badly in Spanish despite the sun having long since gone down. Somebody else inside groaned, and Katie heard the rustling of sheets as somebody evidently grew annoyed enough to get up, and the soft _thwump_ of a pillow as it impacted flesh.

"Lance, for the love of burritos please _be quiet before Iverson gets you expelled_ ," someone hissed.

The singer – who Katie assumed must be Lance, tutted in offense and replied, "he couldn’t expel me if he wanted to! I'm the best pilot this place has ever seen, Hunk, what would they do without me?"

There were heavy footsteps as Hunk made his way across the room. "They got rid of Keith, didn’t they?"

"Hey, he was terrible compared to me! And anyway, that was –" Lance began to protest.  
"A disciplinary issue, I know. You’ve said. But if you don’t shut up Iverson might count it as an assault on his ears," Hunk half-joked, then deadpanned, "now give me back my pillow."  
Lance sighed. "Sorry. I'm just missing home, I guess. It was El's birthday today. She used to love that song.”

"Oh." Hunk seemed to flounder for a bit as he sat back down on his bed, before finally saying, "didn't you call her?"

"I tried. She was at her dad's though, and I don’t know the number. And mama was too busy with the kids to talk to me. It's fine though, I know they're all okay." He feigned a yawn, and Katie imagined that if she could see him, he would be raising his arms above his head in true cartoon fashion.

"Lance, I –" Hunk began quietly.

A curtain was drawn, swiftly and loudly, and Lance said, as quietly as a whisper, "I'm tired Hunk, we can talk tomorrow."

Hunk sighed. "Sure. And if its any consolation... your singing wasn’t that bad."

Lance let out a bark of laughter, "yes it was buddy, but thanks. I will give you one of my mixtapes for your birthday."

"I'll hold you to that." Hunk smiled in response as he closed his own curtains. "Wake me up if it looks like I'm gonna sleep through breakfast."

Katie waited for a few minutes before they stood up and peered through the window into the dark room, stretching their back out until they heard the audible pop of their spine re-aligning. They scraped the straggling strands of hair from the nape of their neck and collected them together into a fist, regretting not shearing it all off when they had the chance. Why they’d ever thought having long hair was a good idea in a desert, they’d never know. Stuffing it ungracefully into their green bobble with the rest of their ponytail, Katie took note of the room in front of them. There were three beds, all with a surrounding curtain, arranged in a line opposite three small chests of drawers. The closest bed to the wall was empty, and the other two had their curtain drawn. Nonetheless, Katie knew that neither of the boys could possibly be asleep yet.

Katie carefully eased a foot through the open window and rested it on the blue carpet on the other side, feeling the bumpy texture even through their shoes and taking a moment to appreciate the stability that just couldn’t be had on sand. Slowly, so, so slowly, Katie ducked the rest of their body under the window and held onto the sill as they pulled the other foot through to be standing completely inside the building.  
There were dirty socks on the floor, now clearly visible from the other side of the tinted glass. Light trickled in through the thin gap in the door, the only illumination offered into the blackness, and refracted across the floor like a falling star.

Hoping that there were no loose boards in the floor, they waddled ungracefully across the room, making sure that their trousers wouldn’t brush together or shoes squeak, alerting the two cadets to their presence. The whole room stank like teenage boy – but to be fair, Katie often did too, so they picked their way through the labyrinth of sweaty clothes without much cause for complaint. They bit their lip in desperate attempt to mask the sound of their breathing.

Freedom was so close they could almost taste it. Katie wrapped their fingers around the edge of the neat white door and yanked it open far enough to escape through, then pulled it to again when they had sidled through.

They leaned backwards onto the wall, ignoring Lance's yelp of “its ghosts!” and Hunk's tired reply of “its just a draft, Lance,” in favour of resting their hands on their thighs and dropping their head forward to catch their breath.

The cameras in this section had been disabled, so they weren’t too worried about that, but someone usually came around in about ten minutes time to check that all of the lights were out. Reluctantly, Katie pushed off the wall and headed down the corridor the opposite way that Commander Iverson would come with his wannabe militia.

They'd met a few times before, and Katie was sure that neither of them wanted to ever see each other again. It had been Iverson that had told the lies about the Kerberos mission in the first place, accompanying the police to their home. It had been Iverson that had caught Katie the first time they had... _visited_ the garrison, and he hadn’t been too happy to see them then either.

Going both as quickly and stealthily as they could, Katie managed to get to the nearest office before being seen, which in itself was a minor miracle. They managed to unlock the door with the number pad on the first try – the code was 0000, like a 12 year old's iPod – and kicked the chair away from in front of the computer. They cracked their knuckles, flicked the monitor on and braced themselves on the desk. It was time to bust this thing wide open.

It booted up slowly. A lot slower than Katie wanted it to, but it probably wasn’t any slower than normal, to be honest. They gritted their teeth and squeezed their eyes shut to resist the urge to drum their fingers on the wood. They took their USB stick from their pocket and slotted it in without looking (then took it out, turned it and tried again), knowing from experience exactly where the hole would be. In no time at all, they had opened up a window and had cracked the password lock, then managed to get into the files for the Kerberos mission, feigning top security clearance.

Their eyes grew wide, almost bugging out of their skull, and their breathing grew hot and heavy. They felt a drop of sweat slide all the way down their spine, and they didn’t even stop to brush the hair out of their eyes Their fingers were a blur as they checked again, and again, and again.

Oh my god.

Oh my god!

Suddenly, the light flicked on above them and they leapt back from the computer as though burned.

“YOU AGAIN?” roared Commander Iverson, lips quivering and hatred boiling in his one good eye. “Get off my computer! How did you get past the guards?”

Katie balled their fists and stood their ground. “You said the spacecraft went down due to pilot error.” Katie was too angry to be scared, and stood up straight, glaring at him as they spat the words. They threw their arms out to the sides and gestured to the computer screen, “ I saw the video feeds from your probes, there’s no evidence of a crash _anywhere_ on Kerberos!”

Iverson's lips twitched again, and Katie could tell that their words had only managed to make him madder.

 _Good!_ They thought _. Maybe now they’ll actually do something about it and act like they care about their missing members!_

“Those feeds are classified! I could charge you with treason for hacking into them!” Iverson grabbed Katie’s arm and began to drag her away. Their heart sank.

Iverson didn’t care about Matt or their dad at all.

Their voice broke as they were thrown out into the hall, and they could barely keep the tremor from their voice as they yelled, “where is my family?”

“Escort Miss Holt off the premises,” he continued as though he hadn’t heard them, “and make sure every guard knows that she’s never allowed on Garrison property. Ever. Again.”

Without even one backwards look, Commands Iverson turned and strode away from them, as though Katie's love for their family was just one more annoyance that he had to deal with. He left quickly and purposefully, as though he had much more important things to attend to than three missing recruits.

Katie supposed he probably did – like shining his shoes or heating up synthetic peas. He didn’t care one bit.

Rage boiled within Katie, even as she was being dragged away by their arms, and they spoke without thinking, roaring a promise for everyone to hear: “you can’t keep me out! I’ll find the truth, I’ll never stop!”

Deep in their bones, they knew it to be true. There was nothing that could keep them from finding their family; not barring, not prison, not even deportation. And certainly nothing so stupid as light-years of open space.

People were stuck out there, tired and hungry, but for some reason Iverson didn’t want anyone to know about it. In Katie’s opinion, that was enough of a reason alone to want to expose the truth. There was no way they were going to abandon Matt out there.

If Katie couldn’t go back, so be it. But that wouldn’t be able to stop them. If Katie couldn’t find their family, someone else would. After all, why would they want to keep their long hair in the desert?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, some of that dialogue was taken directly from the show.  
> I tried to characteristics Hunk right, but just in case I didn't manage to convey it, he is a really good friend to Lance and most of what he said was meant in humour.
> 
> You kudos and comments fuel me like gold does a dragon :)


	2. Red-Handled Scissors

It was 6:30am on the day that Katie’s life would change forever. 

They stooped low over the sink, hair falling into their eyes and dripping down over their shoulders like warm honey, glowing amber in the yellow light of the bathroom. Their hands trembled where they supported their weight on either side of the basin, tremors travelling up their arms to wrack their whole body at once. For some reason, actually doing it was proving much harder than they’d thought it would be.  

“Come on, Katie, you have to do this,” they murmured to themself. Tongue flicking out to wet their lips, they took a deep breath and lifted their head to stare into the hazel pair of eyes in the mirror. 

Katie was scared. Not scared about how their mother would react, or scared of how they were going to be treated by others. More than anything else, Katie was scared of what they were going to look like. 

Whenever their mother looked at them now, she cried. Katie knew they already looked too much like the people she had lost – they had Matt’s sandy hair and crazy eyebrows, and their dad's wide smile and wiry frame. People were supposed to stick together to deal with loss, but Katie was quite glad that they were going to be leaving. 

If they had to stay, they would probably be driven insane. 

Getting a place at Galaxy Garrison had been tough so late into the year, but nothing that Katie couldn’t handle. Their grades were good enough to get them in, having taken and aced their final exams a year early, and after changing their name, age and gender on the school system (then tweaking with their medical records and personal history) there was nothing to link them back to Katie Holt except for their looks and determination. It was already halfway through the year – before groups were assigned, but after everyone's ability had been tested – and so they added a little something extra to convince the head of recruitment that they were the best engineer for the position; theoretical blueprints for a ship capable of light-speed space travel and a letter of recommendation from Bath University. 

And, of course, it was delivered by a homemade drone fitted with facial recognition software that would give their application only to Professor Montgomery herself. 

Unsurprisingly, that seemed to get the attention of the Garrison, and Katie soon received a letter in their PO box with a full acceptance and their new group placings. They hadn’t particularly cared who they would end up rooming with, but even so they hadn’t been able to keep their amused smirk hidden when they read the two names on the paper; Hunk Garrett and Lance McClain – the only two cadets that Katie knew by name.  

“At least I already know where my room is,” they had chuckled quietly into the envelope, which had earned a few confused glances from the post office employees.  

The wistful smile dropping from their face, Katie bit their lip. They weren’t stupid: they knew that what they were doing was dangerous. They were hardly a stranger to the guards and faculty members of the Garrison. If they were recognised even once, they could get thrown into prison for trespassing and never be able to find the missing Kerberos crew. One look at Katie’s face, and Iverson would bury all of the information so deep that it would poke out of the ground in Australia. 

No, they were much too conspicuous as they were. They couldn’t risk it.  

Katie stood up straight and squeezed their eyes shut, and when they reopened them a few seconds later they blazed with a newfound determination. Before they could change their mind, they took hold of the right side of the mirror and pulled, opening the cabinet and shooting their other hand inside. Closing the door again, they tightened their hold on a pair or red-handles scissors and glared at themself. 

“Come  _on_ , Katie!” they ground out forcefully, and raised the scissors to a point just below their right ear, hands shaking with adrenaline and nostrils flared wide with their tempestuous breaths. 

They hesitated. 

_God_  this was pathetic! They clenched their teeth and snapped the scissors shut all at once, severed strands of hair landing on their shoulders and the floor. 

Oh.  

Katie lowered the scissors and blinked stupidly at their reflection, face going slack and back straightening like a taut bungee chord.  

That... didn’t look half bad, actually. 

Turning to the side, Katie stared at themself. It really was uncanny; if they ignored the hair hanging limply down their back and the small curve of growing breasts, they looked like a different person entirely. Older. More boyish. 

More like Matt. 

The thought made their heart ache, and they closed their eyes as their face abruptly crumbled under the weight of anguish and guilt. 

Why were they even doing this? There must have been other ways! What had they been thinking, applying to the Garrison as though they had any right at all? And now this – cutting their hair short, pretending to be a boy, jumping into Matt's place before the seat was even cold. What would he say if he could see them now? Would he be glad that they were getting a head-start in life, or angry that they were stealing his? 

Katie quickly turned and lifted the toilet lid, doubling over to clutch desperately at the grubby porcelain as bile rose in their throat. They couldn’t help it – they retched and retched into the bowl, the acidic liquid burning their throat and dripping from their nose when they sat down and reached out scrabbling fingers to grab for a tissue. Katie brought an unsteady hand to their face to wipe their mouth, and was surprised when it came back wet. They didn’t realise they had been crying. 

Matt was different. Matt was nothing like Katie. When he decided to do something, he followed it through to the end.  

Katie drew their knees up to their chest and let their head fall down onto them, muscles as limp and useless as Katie could expect. They knew, deep down, that Matt wouldn't mind. Hell, he'd probably even be impressed at how gutsy their little sister was becoming. But Katie didn’t feel gutsy. They felt like a liar. Like a fake.  

It didn’t really matter what Matt would say, realistically, because Matt wasn't there. What did matter was how Katie felt about it all; about that chance, no matter how small, that Matt would hate it – hate  _them_  for what they were doing. For masquerading as something that they weren't, for rebuilding themselves like a scarecrow, rough around the edges and with no idea how to function outside of the boundaries that life had already set. 

Katie had never even set foot in the Garrison before Matt went missing. They had never had to cook their own meals or decide their own bedtimes before their mom went borderline insane. They'd never had to think about anything other than science or space or how to weld one panel of metal to the next since their dad had first cradled them in his arms, promising with a wide-toothed smile that he would take care of them forever. 

On their own, Katie had no idea how to live. 

But Katie had to. They lifted their head again and fixed their glare, unwavering, onto the tiles in front of them. If they didn't suck it up and get on with it, Matt and their dad would never set foot inside their own home again. They'd never fall asleep on the sofa with Gunther on their stomachs, or laugh together over the table at an inside joke that Katie could only guess at, leaving their mother baffled and their dad hiding his grin behind is palm and explaining that it was  _nothing, dear._  They'd never float, relaxed and together in their isolation, just under the surface of the Cessabit River where they had each been taught to swim, gazing peacefully at the clouds gliding lazily across the sky and wondering what it would be like to soar up through the blue and into the immense vacuum of space. They'd never gaze up past the glare of the sun, wondering who was gazing back. 

Katie missed their first day at the Garrison, curled up on the bathroom floor with their eyes fixed on the wall, practicing breathing exercises that came in through nose and out through the mouth until their throat grew scratchy and sore. The light poring through the window gradually got brighter, then lessened and waned to nothing, leaving them ensconced in the orange light filtering down from the cut-price bulb hanging from the ceiling, like a man hanging from a noose who had lost all motivation to struggle or to breathe. Eventually, that meager light flickered out too. 

In the bitter black of night Katie found themself on their hands and knees, dragging their unresponsive body along like a spider dragging the carcass of a moth, groping at the edges of the floor in a bid to avoid slamming their head into a wall. When their forehead lightly brushed the icy cold white of the sink, they leaned gratefully into it and blew their hair up out of their eyes. One hand snaked up into the basin.  

When their fingers touched metal, Katie grabbed onto it so tightly that they could've cut themselves on the blunt edges. It would be easier to cut their hair in the dark. It would be easier if no one could see. 

They separated their hair out with practiced ease, remembering doing the same on their first day of school – except that time, it had been to weave the sections together into plaits. Each handful was lost with a  _snip_  of the kitchen scissors, and with each one came a sense of purpose. Every strand that fell clumsily to the floor only reaffirmed Katie's transformation into something other than what they had always been. Each graze of metal along the back of their neck brought them further and further from what they had ever known – but ever closer to finding Matt.  

When they had finished they run a hand through what was left. It wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t straight, but that didn’t matter. It would do. Nobody would be stupid enough to say anything anyway, although Katie almost hoped that they would. But Katie was not Katie any more. They weren't a child, or an innocent bystander on the beach, watching the to and fro of the waves that pushed time along. They weren't Katie any more, who would sit idly by as life moved on around them. 

Katie was gone, and they were never coming back. Now, they were an academy recruit, the youngest ever before and the best in their field. They were quick, strong, determined to succeed against all odds. They were someone new entirely.  

They were Pidge Gunderson, and they weren't going to bow down to anyone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that its so short, but it felt right to end it here.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, some of that dialogue was taken directly from the show.  
> I tried to characteristics Hunk right, but just in case I didn't manage to convey it, he is a really good friend to Lance and most of what he said was meant in humour.
> 
> You kudos and comments fuel me like gold does a dragon :)


End file.
